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MARCUS W. DAVIS 

SAN ANTONIO. TEXAS 



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O^e jFlag, JF^raternalism, 
an6 t^eTf^ulure 



— BY — 

MARCUS W. DAVIS 

SAN ANTONIO. TEXAS 



OLD GLORY is now unfurled to the 
war breezes of an infuriated militarism, 
backed by an unconscionable despotism. The 
titanic war effort of the champions of world 
safety has called to the leadership of our 
nation's flag our best man-power and the coordi- 
nation and active operation of all of our human 
institutions. The fraternal society, so to speak, 
which goes over the top, in this world crisis, will 
live after the silence of guns and during the 
reign of world peace. Such fraternal orders will 
survive after Prussian greed and brutality have 
been banished from the face of the earth, but 
that fraternal order which fails to follow the 
leadership of our imperial and immortal flag in 
this world contest for the supremacy of right 
will wither and die. 

The call of our nation, in this perilous hour, 
is not confined alone to the soldier boy, but to 
every civic, religious, and fraternal institution 



of the land. The day of heroic effort and abso^ 
lute sacrifice has dawned with the war clouds 
of terror hovering over our nation's destiny, 
and all organized fraternalism must willingly 
and generously respond to the nation's needs 
with the same eagnerness and willingness with 
which our brave boys have gone to battle against 
the war lords of degenerated Prussia. After the 
roar of destructive cannon fire is silenced upon 
the bloody battlefields of Europe, after the shrill 
and shriek of death dealing war engines are 
hushed and the peace loving nations of the 
world have sung the last sad mournful requiem 
over the lonely graves of their departed dead, 
and after our brave soldiers return to their 
homes to take up life's battle anew, then v/e will 
have new ideals, new hopes, new patiotism, new 
civic, industrial, political and social conditions, 
and this fraternal order must take a new place 
in the lives and affairs of men. Then it will be 
that every patriot will fully realize that every 
thread, every star and every bar of Old Glory 
symbolizes sovereignty, power, and universal 
safety for the liberty loving peoples of this and 
other nations. Patriotic devotion to our flag 
means more today and will mean more in the 
years to come than ever before in the history of 



this country, and we, as an indissoluble brother- 
hood of patriotic fraternalists, should arise and 
put on our full armor of strength to the end 
that we may show to the world that we are and 
will be an important factor in making the world 
a safe place in which to live. 

We sometimes hear the skulking slacker and 
the over-zealous pacifist utter unpatriotic words 
of criticism, but I say to you in a spirit of char- 
ity that this is no time nor place for adverse 
criticism of our naton's leaders, though they 
may have made mistakes. The ringing words 
of the immortal poet should be rewritten with 
patrotic fervor upon the hearts of every fra- 
teranalist. 

"Stand thou by thy country's quarrel. 
Be that quarrel what it may; 
He shall wear the greenest laurels, 
Who shall greatest zeal display." 

The double standard of loyalty is an insult to 
Old Glory and a menace to our high ideals. One 
God, one flag, and eternal truth, one and in- 
separable, should be the program of every 
American patriot. 

To us every thread of our flag is pure gold 
and every star upon it a diamond. The destiny 
of our nation and the universal safety of right 



living peoples of other nations is wrapped with- 
in the imperishable folds of our beloved flag. 
My brothers, follow its leadership at home and 
abroad, worship at its shrine, let the symbolic 
meaning of the stars and stripes stir your fra- 
ternal patriotism as never before, to the end 
that this fraternal brotherhood may, in this su- 
preme test hour, awake to the awful responsi- 
bility that now rests upon fraternalism as a 
living, vitalizing, and active force in the allied 
purpose to crush militarism and secure the per- 
manent safety of the righteous peoples of the 
earth. 

At the conclusion of every destructive war 
comes the readjustment and rebuilding of deso- 
lated and ruined human institutions, and as 
a consequence calls out, in bold relief, the 
strength or weakness of all fraternal orders. 
As the symbolisms of this order are the sym- 
bolisms of our nation, this fraternity, in this 
crisis, should deliver to the world the full fru- 
ition of the hopes of its founders. By reason 
of the great struggle between the Huns and the 
Allies, fraternalism has been brought closer to 
our government and its people than ever before 
in the history of the world, and they have now 
come to fully realize the importance of organ- 



ized fraternalism as a factor in the defense of 
liberty and in the establishment and perpetua- 
tion of world peace. This is our war for uni- 
versal democracy, the survival of right living 
and the safety of all peoples, and if this order is 
but a camp follower, and Prussianism, which is 
synonimous with hell on earth, shall dominate 
the world, your charity-hands will fall, para- 
lyzed, beside your bodies, and your organiza- 
tion for the material and social uplift of your 
brotherhood will be compelled to yield up its 
power to the war lords of a nation devoid of 
principle, and the one who has shown that it has 
forgotten God. Unless we as a brotherhood 
follow the leadership of our flag, our master 
will be a nation whose god is deception, and 
whose hope is to cast us into the caldron of 
withering Hun oppression. 

Our governmental structure not only rests 
upon the individual lives of our people, but also 
upon the religious, industrial, social, political 
and fraternal institutions of our country, and 
a material part of the weight of the war burden 
falls directly upon this order. My brothers, in 
the name of hum.anity and for the sake of our 
personal and national safety, let us, as an organ- 
ized band of liberty loving patriots, stand 



against the invasion of our inalienable and Gocf 
given rights. At this time while every man is' 
being subjected to the crucial and supreme test 
as ta his loyalty to the nation's banner let us 
stand as firm as the granite mountain and 
truly carry our load of responsibility as our 
brave boys are carrying it in the face of death- 
dealing missies upon the blood bathed battle 
fields of benighted Europe. 

The American Eagle, the flag and national 
patriotic expressions run throughout our rit- 
ualistic work and in times of peace as well as in 
war we are truly the great patriotic fraternal 
order. When the reign of terror shall cease, 
and when the world, so to speak, shall be recast, 
by our loyalty to Old Glory in this world strug- 
gle, we will take our place as one of the essen- 
tial and enduring istitutions of a new world. 

In my feeble way, I have, so to speak, turned 
back the veil hanging between the present and 
the future, and with a feint prophetic vision I 
have given you what I see. More wonderful 
are the beautiful words of our nation's poet: 



"And I dip't into the future, far as human eye 
could see, 

Saw a vision of the world and all the wonder 

that would be, 
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, as there 

rained a ghastly dew, 
From the nation's airy navies, grappling in the 

central blue." 

I have said that after this world clash, we 
will have a new world, and that all mankind, 
including fraternal orders, must adapt them- 
selves to new conditions, I know no better way 
to express my belief in the statement just made 
than to again quote the words of the poet: 

"Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the 

battle-flags were furl'd 
In the Parliament of men, the Federation of 

the world. 
There the common sense of most shall hold a 

fretful realm in awe. 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in 

universal law." 

In conclusion, my brothers, let us rededicate 
ourselves to the wonderful sentiment expressed 
by one who sleeps beneath English sod: 

"Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy coun- 
try's. 

Thy God's and Truth's; then, if thou fall'st, 
O Cromwell, 

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr." 



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